By this, I don't mean a co-op campaign since as far as I know that wouldn't be possible, but rather a series of missions where one player has a single consistent army throughout the campaign, while the other controls a series of preset enemy armies (ie. playing as the 'AI' throughout the missions)

Just to clarify, there will be 2 human players in each battle, the 'campaign player', and 'the enemy'.

The campaign player will have an army, similar to the one you start with in the single player campaign.Each mission, the enemy player will take control of a pre-set army, depending on the map/mission(unless otherwise stated in the GUIDELINES).

Assuming the campaign player wins, he will then need SAVE the army at the end of the battle (ideally as something recognisable, like END_MISSION_3_750G to avoid confusion when editing the army later), and LOAD it at the beginning of the next battle. Between battles he will be able to reinforce, and improve, his army.The enemy player however, will always start with a new army, again emulating the single player campaign.

If the campaign player losses, he will need to rebuild his army as best he can with the funds that he has, though they will have the option of conceding if they get to the point where they are to weak to rebuild.

I've drawn up a preliminary set of rules, though it will still be subject to a few changes, but the main thing I need now is people to help me test the missions and the balance of the campaign that I'm writing.So far I have mission 1 written, a nice easy one, so all challengers are welcome before the battle, you will need to read the rules and the mission context, which I will be able to send you.

If there is any significant demand, I will post the rules I have so far, though as they will still be changed a lot, I may as well wait before uploading them.

Ok, i've uploaded the RULES, so please feel free to download and take a look. I will notify when I make any changes

If you want to take up the challenge, feel free to add me on GameRanger: Sparkee [ID: 6125107]

The evident dis-/advantage is obvious; I'm curios how you transcribe the "AI armies" however, you will need to mod the prices, as I doubt regular prices will do the job ... anyway, if you want to test, I'll try to be on GameRanger the next days!

I was considering that, though seeing as I won't actually be modding any of the game files, I figured it didn't really class as a mod.

As for the costs, the options regarding how you spend your money will be controlled by the rules. So no recruiting a whole load of wood elf archers and wiping out everything that comes your way.

An example I would give is my plan for mission 2:

You will be attacking Helmgart with your preset army and will have 'permission' to buy a mercenary cavalry. I will try and make a lot of points with optional purchases, where you will be able to recruit one unit or another.

The fact that you will increase your ranks in this manner should help reduce the amount of money a player accumulates, and reinforcements should eat up the rest.

The biggest challenge will be ensuring the player has enough money to reinforce, at least to some extent, still leaving them with enough money for new recruits, while still making sure that they don't build up a huge stockpile of money(as seems to happen in the single player game).

The combination of keeping your limited units alive combined with the budgetary constraint should make for a fun challenge! Assuming I can balance it right of course

As for the 'AI' forces, they won't really be constrained by the prices (well, I suppose to some degree, but 9k should be enough to challenge a 3k army, even after it's been built up a fair bit)

Having opted not to buy armour before the mission, he is now left with 1560g (URKA spent 600 on armour), having taken only minimal losses.

The goblins broke like twigs in hurricane.

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Mission 2 was a success, with some minor losses, the ice mage wreaked havoc on the goblin forces and, despite their superior numbers and having archers on the high ground, they were unable to do anything about the curs-ed spell caster.

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Mission 3 was costly, but successful. The cannon sustained some serious damage, and the Greatswords have been decimated, but the enemy infantry support has been destroyed. On to the towers.

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Mission 4: The siege has been broken, but at what cost?Vladimir is dead and we find ourselves without his ice shields and magical protection.

Having stopped the Goblin advance, URKA earned 1050 gold in spoils of war450 of this went on reinforcements, leaving him with 600 gold to add to his 150 savings.

His total gold is currently 750g, heading into mission 2, where the Orcs have taken up residence in the castle at Helmgart.

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Mission 2:

Pyrrhic Victory- all was going well and night goblins were fleeing left right and centre, until a rogue arrow pierced Vladimir in the chest. The death of the wizard sent panic through the army and soon the greatswords fled, the halbadiers broke ranks and the Helmgart Bowmen found themselves being peppered with arrows from both sides until not one man was left standing. The goblin archers marched on the cannon, or at least those that didn't flee at the very sound of it. Before they were able to engage it, the remaining Greatswords had rallied to protect their cannon, charging against a hail of arrows and taking a cannonball from their own cannon to the left flank. The resulting moment of disorganisation allowed the single unit of goblin archers to fire 2 rounds of arrows into the cannon at close range, forcing the crew to abandon their post, before the Greatsword, or at leas the 3 that remained, to engage the last of the goblins and slay them where they stood.

A victory, but at a great, great cost. Following the battle, the commander resigns, turning over what is left of his forces, back to the empire.

6 missions are fully written at the moment, and 5 players have tested it so far;

Mission 1-3 are pretty much as they should be, with mission 2 being a bit higher on the difficulty scale than one might expect of the 2nd mission in a campaign, but otherwise being fairly balanced and nicely challenging.

Mission 4 has proved very difficult to balance, but is a very entertaining mission to play. More testing is needed to get it perfect.

Mission 5 is just right and should be an entertaining challenge for most players, and offer a chance for weakened armies to rebuild a bit of strength.

Mission 6 has also been difficult to balance, and I need to test it more with weakened armies, though I think I've found a way to compensate for this possibility.

Due to some changes in mission 4, those that played through and won mission 4 in its current form will be able to recruit the Ice Mage again if you lost him (only one player has kept him alive so far)

The missions will soon have some branching/optional elements, like in the single player campaign; a unique element to Dark Omen campaigns which I think will present players an interesting challenge (but not until about mission 12); and a very interesting concept for the final mission which I'm very excited to try out, but dreading trying to balance.

There is a small update to the rules, mainly minor tweaks, but I'm re-uploading them here